Avengers (Vol. 1) #11

Background

Spider-Man meets the Avengers. Well, sort of.

Just a few months back, Spider-Man met up with Giant-Man and the Wasp (Tales
to Astonish #57, July 1964) in the first major web-slinger feature without
Steve Ditko either penciling or inking. (Dick Ayers and Paul Reinman performed
those tasks, respectively.) Now Spidey (sort of) meets all of the Avengers.
(Except for Iron Man who is on the cover but not in the actual story. More
about that in a moment.) This time the illustrations are by Don Heck with
inking by Chic Stone. Stan Lee writes both stories and both stories are missing
something, both in plot and composition. No offence to everyone who worked on
these issues but the real lesson here is how essential Steve Ditko is to the
Spider-Man process at this point in time, which makes the successful transition
to John Romita in ASM #39, August 1966 all that much more remarkable.

As I said, Iron Man is on the cover, which depicts the five Avengers (Thor,
Giant-Man, the Wasp, Iron Man, and Captain America) caught in a web as Spider-
Man looks on. The splash page also shows the Avengers snagged on a giant web
(Well, Thor, Giant-Man and Captain America, at any rate. The Wasp is flying
free.) with Spidey looking on but correctly eliminates Iron Man. This is,
let's face it, a sneaky trick for anyone who buys their comics simply by
looking at the cover and who happens to be an Iron Man fan. Don't tell me that
Stan and the gang didn't know what they were doing when they slipped Iron Man
onto this cover! Shame on you guys!

All right, before we go any further, let me give a completely unnecessary recap
of the Avengers. They were brought together as a result of a scheme by Loki,
the Norse God of Evil in Avengers #1, September 1963 and originally
consisted of Ant-Man, the Wasp, the Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man. Ant-Man becomes
Giant-Man and the Hulk leaves the group in the very next issue (Avengers #2,
November 1963) and Captain America, revived from suspended animation, joins
in Avengers #4, March 1964. The big shake-up of Hawkeye, Quicksilver,
and the Scarlet Witch replacing Giant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, and Thor is still
five issues in the future (Avengers #16, May 1965). So, what we're
dealing with is essentially original Avengers. Very early stuff here, gang.

Henry Pym, as Giant-Man, is working on a delicate experiment in his lab when a
signal light starts to flash and Thor's voice booms out over a loud speaker.
As the "Chairman of the Avengers for this week", Thor is calling a special
meeting and expects everyone to respond immediately. Giant-Man calls in and
asks for a short delay to finish his experiment but his request is emphatically
denied. "There can be no exceptions!" says the longhaired Norse
taskmaster, "Avengers business always takes priority!" (That's right, Thor!
Science be damned!) Hank's experiment melts down to glass fragments, smoke and
a puddle and he is not one bit pleased. "I should have had my head examined
when I let them talk me into joining their little sewing circle!" he says to
the Wasp, "That long-haired square has all the charm of a rusty doorknob." The
Wasp is not impressed by this outburst. "You know you wouldn't miss a meeting
for anything" she tells him.

And so the meeting comes to order with Thor, Giant-Man, the Wasp, Captain
America and Rick Jones in attendance but without Iron Man. This turns out to
be the reason for the meeting (and for this Hank had to give up on his
experiment?). Thor, reading from some papers (like he couldn't say what he has
to say off the top of his head), tells the others that, allegedly, Tony Stark
has been killed. There are two reasons why this concerns the Avengers. First,
they use Stark's home as their headquarters. Second, Iron Man is also
missing. (At this time, the Avengers do not know that Tony Stark is
Iron Man. They believe that Iron Man is Tony Stark's bodyguard.). Giant-Man
conjectures that Iron Man is out on his own, trying to track down Tony Stark's
murderer "if it was murder". Thor wonders why Iron Man hasn't called the
Avengers in to help and Giant-Man tells him "We mere mortals have a code of
honor and duty which you may find hard to understand". Captain America
concurs. "I'm sure that the golden Avenger wants to do this job alone as a
matter of pride," he says. Cap then moves that the Avengers "suspend all
operations for twenty-four hours as a mark of respect to the late Tony Stark"
and the Wasp seconds the motion. Giant-Man, however, amends the motion,
believing that "Stark himself would want us to continue to stay on duty in case
we're needed". He therefore moves for granting Iron Man "a temporary leave of
absence until his mission is done". Rick Jones raises his hand and seconds
Giant-Man's motion only to be shot down by Cap who stands and barks, "You're
out of order, Rick! You have no voting privilege with the Avengers as yet!"
(Yeah, yeah, right, Mr. Establishment. Power to the people!) Now that he's
taken the time to humiliate Rick, Cap agrees with him! He withdraws his motion
and seconds Giant-Man's motion. The rest of the Avengers also stand as Thor
rules the motion is carried. He then declares the meeting adjourned. The Wasp
immediately pulls out her lipstick and gives herself a new glossy coat. Hank
wonders why the remark that they are adjourning "always seem[s] to be a signal
for you to put on fresh lipstick, little lady" and the Wasp replies, "Every
remark is a signal for a girl to freshen her lipstick, big boy! And please
don't speak to me right now, or I might smudge it!" (Ah, the mid-60s! You
gotta love it!)

Thor then announces that the chairman of the next meeting will be Captain
America and he yields the gavel to him, little suspecting that someone has been
eavesdropping on their entire meeting but before we get to that... what's the
deal with this "death of Tony Stark" stuff anyway? It begins in Tales of
Suspense #59 (November 1964) when Tony Stark collapses in front of his
secretary Pepper Potts and his chauffeur Happy Hogan. Unknown to everyone
else, Stark wears a "protective chest device" to keep his heart beating which
is also the chest plating for his Iron Man armor. He collapses because the
device starts to malfunction. Pepper and Happy try to get a doctor but Tony
doesn't want his chest plate revealed because it will expose his secret
identity. When the evil Black Knight attacks, Tony crawls into his office and
locks the door. Inside, he recharges his chest plate but is forced
to "increase the power output" of the Iron Man suit by adding "extra transistor
power" from his "belt pods". Then, as Iron Man, he breaks through the wall and
defeats the Black Knight. Slipping back into the office (and repairing the
wall), Stark realizes that he now needs all the power of the suit to stay
alive. He dare not change out of the Iron Man armor. He opens the office door
and tells Pepper and Happy that Mr. Stark "left by another secret entrance",
that "he'll be out of town for a while" and that he left Iron Man in charge.
But Pepper and Happy don't buy it. They know that Tony was ill and they now
suspect that Iron Man has done away with his boss. In Tales of Suspense #60
(December 1964), the police are brought in and they accuse Iron Man of
murdering Tony Stark. Iron Man has a note in Tony Stark's handwriting that
authorizes him to take charge while the boss is on a secret mission but the
cops quickly discover that there are no fingerprints on the note (since Iron
Man forgot to take off his metal gloves when he wrote it). Faced with this
damning piece of evidence, Iron Man panics and makes a break for it. He flies
through a window, shattering the glass as he escapes. Once away from the
police, he contacts Thor and requests permission to be absent from the
Avengers' meeting. He also assures Thor that "on my honor as an Avenger, I
have not betrayed Tony Stark". Thor grants the permission. (Since Stan wrote
nearly every super-hero story at this time in the Marvel Universe, the
continuity is usually impressively precise. Note, however, in this case that
after Iron Man reports in to Thor in Suspense, the Thunder God merely
says that "Iron Man has been missing" and wonders why Iron Man has "not
summoned us to assist him", in Avengers as mentioned a couple of
paragraphs back.)

That's already more information than is needed to explain Iron Man absence but,
for those of you wondering, here's how it all wraps up. With Tony Stark
missing for over a month, Pepper and Happy tender their resignations to Iron
Man in Tales of Suspense #61 (January 1965). They then go to the police
and the press with their suspicions. Later, Happy sneaks onto the grounds of
Tony Stark's estate to see what he can see. Tony is in his bedroom without his
helmet on when Happy scales the balcony and starts to enter. He barely has
time to jump under the covers and pretend that he is sick in bed. He tells
Happy and the arriving Pepper that he has been exhausted and has instructed
Iron Man to run the business in his place. Happy and Pepper still don't
entirely buy it. They think Iron Man may be holding Mr. Stark hostage. All of
this becomes moot when the Mandarin attacks with a "killer satellite". The
press has gotten word that Tony Stark is sick in bed and the Mandarin uses this
info to aim a laser beam right into the bedroom, destroying everything inside.
Stark is protected by his Iron Man armor but he finds it convenient to let the
world believe that Tony Stark has been killed. It is not until Tales of
Suspense #63, March 1965 that Tony comes up with the idea of "modifying a
master transistor and tripling its power output" which allows him to remove all
the armor except for the chest plate. He puts on a suit and tie, waltzes right
into his office (nearly knocking Pepper and Happy flat with the shock) and
comes out with this cockamamie story about being out on a yacht for several
weeks and never hearing the news that he was supposed to be dead even though he
was supposed to be sick in bed only a short time before.

But that's enough of all that. As you'll recall, someone was eavesdropping on
that special meeting of the Avengers. From his hideout in the year 3000, Kang
the Conqueror watches on "a fantastic electronic device from the far future"
which looks more like a big clunky computer with an oval TV picture tube from
the year 1964. Hard as it may be to imagine with a villain like Kang who has
made something like a couple of thousand appearances (or so it seems), this is
only the second time he has shown up. (The first time was in Avengers #8,
September 1964 in which Kang reveals that he has actually appeared before.
Born in the year 3000, Kang masters time travel, journeys to and conquers
ancient Egypt where he calls himself Pharaoh Rama-Tut, as seen in Fantastic
Four #19, October 1963. After getting spanked by the FF, Rama-Tut travels
to our present where he hangs out in outer space wondering how he can get
revenge. There, in Fantastic Four Annual #2, 1964, he encounters Dr.
Doom floating in space, from his defeat in FF #23, February 1964 and
rescues him. The two chat and Rama-Tut reveals that he was a master criminal
in his own time, the 25th Century, and that his time machine is stolen and was
actually invented by his ancestor Dr. Doom. The two men even discuss the
possibility that they are actually the same man from two different points of
his time line. By the time he meets the Avengers, however, Kang is calling the
30th Century his original time and implying that he created his time machine
himself. After meeting with Doom and returning him to earth, Kang reveals
that "electro-static disturbances in the relative time stream" caused him to
overshoot AD 3000 and arrive in AD 4000 instead. There he finds a world
possessing highly advanced weapons and locked in eternal war. Kang forms an
army and carves out an empire but is soon bored by it all, so he climbs into a
time machine and proclaims himself "Kang the First, ruler of the 20th Century.
For all the good it does him. The Avengers kick his scrawny butt.) Now back in
the year 3000 instead of 4000, for some reason, and with all of time and all
those thousand of appearances to choose from, Kang decides that this
moment, this period of time when the Avengers are "without the power of Iron
Man" and therefore "at their weakest fighting strength" is the perfect time to
attack. (What? He couldn't dial in on the time when Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man
and the Wasp all quit? Why doesn't he fight the Avengers, go away and rest up
for a month, then return to the exact instant that he left, as many times as
necessary to win? Do you get the feeling that Kang is a bit of a klutz when it
comes to choosing opportune moments in time? And since he's watching all this
from the future, shouldn't he already know that all of his attacks are doomed
from the start?) This time, he gets the bright idea to "not battle them in
person". He brags that he is "too wise, too cautious for that" but I think
he's just too chicken to risk getting Thor's hammer thrown at his snoot. He
prides himself on the fact that "with all the knowledge of the far future at my
disposal, it will be a simple matter for me to find another to wage my battle"
since, after all, he's been watching plenty of Avengers battles on his view
screen and has learned from the mistakes of others. In particular, he noted
how "[Baron] Zemo and his Masters of Evil came closest to destroying the
Avengers by using Wonder Man" (in Avengers #9, October 1964) "but they
made one fatal mistake... They failed to reason that Wonder Man himself might
turn against them." But Kang is too smart for that. He vows to use a pawn who
is "completely loyal to Kang" and, he reasons, "there is only one such creature
who fulfills that requirement and that is a robot!"

Now, if Kang was really in the year 3000 and really had the
opportunity to review all of Marvel history, he would know that Ultron betrayed
his inventor and the Vision betrayed his master and hundreds of other robots
have betrayed the various humans to whom they were supposed to be "completely
loyal". But since we really know that this story was written in 1964 and Stan
could have no idea what the next 40 years of Marvel continuity would bring,
we're going to give Kang a break and stop bringing this kind of stuff up.
(Mainly because, with all these digressions, I'm still only up to page three!)

"Just as my ancestor Dr. Doom is the greatest robotic creator of the 20th
Century" Kang tells himself, "So am I the greatest of my century! But being of
the future, my talents are even far greater than his!" His first thought is to
create a team of robots that replicate some of the most powerful super-villains
of 1964 and he conjures up images of the Radioactive Man, the Unicorn,
Mysterio, Magneto, and Dr. Doom on his view screen. But then he decides that
they may just end up "fighting among themselves or getting in each others way".
(But since Kang controls the robots, couldn't he just program them to be nice
to each other?) He decides on a different tack. He will go with one robot,
one that the Avengers will trust. Immediately, Kang knows whom he will copy
for his robot. He calls up a videotape file and plays it on his view screen.
It is a series of images of Spider-Man in action; swinging from his web,
walking a tightrope while blindfolded, battling Kraven the Hunter and his
leopards from ASM Annual #1, 1964 and fending off a force beam with a
web shield. Even from his far future vantage point, Kang only seems to know
that Spider-Man is a loner. Now he studies "available records of his previous
battles to learn to duplicate his fighting style" and to become familiar with
his webbing.

Hours later, Kang is ready to begin. First he creates "a three-dimensional
proto-image" of Spider-Man, then he feeds "all photos and facts about him into
the atomo-duplicator" so the computer can process everything. That done,
his "iso-nuclear duplicator analyzes every last sub-microscopic detail of the
proto-image" ("strength, knowledge, personality, memories") and builds it all
into a Spider-Man robot "possessing every ability of the original" but
answerable only to Kang. With the Spider-Man robot complete, the proto-image
disappears and Kang programs the "lifelike-looking" machine with "the most
minute instructions". Then, he sends the robot back to the 20th Century.

Now, "in the heart of downtown New York", in 1964, the robot stands on the wall
of a building, just like the real web-slinger and follows his instructions.
Kang has told him to "wait at this spot and my opportunity would present itself
within seconds". Sure enough, Captain America walks through after attending a
meeting of Rick Jones' Teen Brigade and he is suddenly attacked by at least six
hoods. Unbeknownst to Cap, however, these hoods are actually more of Kang's
robots. Their purpose is to provide an opportunity for the Spider-Man robot to
hook up with old Winghead, even though Cap seems to be doing just fine on his
own. Following his programming, the Spidey robot drops a big web net over all
the hoodlum robots, who just happen to be standing together in one spot, and
hoists them up into the air. (They are never seen again and we can assume that
Kang whisked them back to AD 3000 at the appropriate time.) Cap thanks Spider-
Man for the assist ("I never knew you were so... cooperative!" he says.) The
robot replies that he jumped in because he wants to join the Avengers. Cap
tells the Spidey-bot that he cannot make that decision alone, but agrees to
take the applicant to Avengers Headquarters to present his case.

Cap summons the Avengers for a special meeting but he doesn't tell them the
reason until they are all together. When Giant-Man sees "Spidey" he
immediately grows to his giant "fighting size just in case!" though the Wasp
thinks he just wants to "show off those dreamy biceps". (Giant-Man should know
better since he already had a misunderstanding with the web-slinger back in
Tales to Astonish #57, July 1964.) Cap tells the group "there's no need
for alarm" and that Spider-Man wants to join up. Thor replies that the
Avengers "do not accept any stranger merely because he possesses some power or
other". He reminds the others that "there are certain tests and a period of
trial". The Wasp states that she doesn't trust the web-slinger. "Everything
about spiders makes my wasp-instinct tingle with hate and loathing," she says.
(This was back in those great early days when Spidey was considered anti-social
and sinister by other heroes, a subplot that is, sadly, long gone, seeing as
the web-slinger has since teamed up with everyone from Sleepwalker to Howard
the Duck.) The robot has been programmed to expect this kind of reception so
he moves on to "phase two of the Master's plan". Casually turning his back on
the Avengers and lifting his hand in farewell, the Spidey-bot says that he
really "came to tell you where to find Iron Man for he needs your help". Now,
however, he refuses to divulge any further information. When Thor orders him
to "Halt!" the bot climbs a wall (who knows where he's going since he is
inside the Avengers headquarters) and replies, "Forget it, pal! I know
when I'm not wanted!" But he stops in his tracks when Thor's hammer strikes
with a "Whoom!" right next to him. (That hammer can't be all that tough. It
strikes a wall that looks like it's made out of plaster and paneling and it
bounces off!) The Spidey-bot turns and points a finger at Thor and, using
his "Spidey vernacular" programming to its fullest, says "Look, Long Hair, I
don't like havin' hammers tossed at me! You may be a real wing-doozy with your
own team, but until I'm one of you, you're just another guy named Joe to me,
savvy?" Personally, that speech cracks me up, but Thor is not amused. He is
ready to tussle with the "wall-crawler" until Captain America steps in, telling
his teammate, "We have Iron Man to think of." When Thor agrees to listen, the
bot spins his yarn. "I was swingin' around the rooftops the other night" he
says, "like a good little Spider-Man should, when I saw a guy with a nutty-
looking mask, accompanied by a 6 ½ foot tall creep and a gorgeous blonde doll
hustle him into a helicopter!" Cap immediately recognizes these descriptions.
Clearly, Baron Zemo, the Executioner, and the Enchantress have kidnapped Iron
Man. Now that the Spidey-bot has hooked his fish, he proceeds to reel them
in. "As they prepared to fly off, I heard the masked one give their
destination! It was the Temple of Tirod in Mexico!" he says.

This story only makes Thor angrier. "And, you did not come to us immediately?"
he bellows, "What manner of man are you?" Giant-Man has to hold Thor back by
grabbing him from behind. He tells Thor that the "webhead" "was under no
obligation". Thor knows that "our first concern is to our missing Avenger" so
he doesn't press the point but he promises, "When we return, I shall have more
to say to Spider-Man". And so, the Avengers go into action and they are so
impressive that even the robot is awed, ("No wonder they are so universally
renowned! Look at the speed with which they blaze into action!") even though
Thor and Cap seem to be running off in different directions. Apparently still
working on the rallying cry, Cap proclaims, "Avengers awaaay!"

Quinjets have yet to be invented so, believe it or not, the "standard operating
procedure" is for the Avengers to separate and individually get to their
destination as best they can. Giant-Man turns into Ant-Man and hitches a ride
on a flying ant to the airport with the Wasp flying along by his side. They
are just in time to catch a flight, in their insect size, on an airplane that
will take them over Mexico. As they travel they wonder why Zemo would take
Iron Man to the Temple of Tirod and why Iron Man didn't "use his built-in
communicator to contact us" when he was captured. When the plane flies over
the appropriate spot, the two tiny heroes bail out. The Wasp is shocked to see
Hank falling. "For heaven's sake, you big goop!" she calls out, "You can't
fly!" But Ant-Man is using his cybernetic helmet to contact a flying ant in
the vicinity. Soon riding his insect mount and with the Wasp again flying by
his side, Ant-Man arrives at the Temple of Tirod, which is an immense Aztec
pyramid on the shores of a lake.

Amazingly enough, the twosome actually beat out Thor and arrive first. They
step to the entrance to the temple. Hank Pym becomes Giant-Man again, growing
to a height of twelve feet. Janet Van Dyne changes to her regular height.
They walk down a hallway, noting that there is no sign of Iron Man. But
someone (who is revealed to be the Spidey-bot a few panels later) is watching
from another room and that someone knows that "this entire temple has been
converted into a gigantic trap for the Avengers!" (So, Kang somehow managed to
convert this huge structure, which must be a national monument, into a death
trap from one thousand years in the future and no one even knows that he's done
it? And this guy still can't defeat the Avengers?)

Suddenly, Giant-Man detects danger via his "cybernetic sense" and instantly
shrinks back down to ant-size to avoid it. The Wasp follows suit and then both
heroes peer ahead to get a look at the danger. What major death trap do they
see? Let's let Giant-Man tell it. "Look... a light beam!" he says. "Where is
it coming from?" wonders the Wasp. "From me, you two doomed fools! From our
friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!" comes the answer as the light turns into
the "Spidey mask" of the spider-signal. So, just to recap, the Spidey-bot has a
temple converted into a gigantic trap at his command and instead of using it he
chooses to announce his presence and reveal himself as an enemy without
springing any trap at all. Then he gets down on his hands and knees to try to
grab the tiny heroes. When Ant-Man wonders "How did you get here so quickly?"
the bot says, "I have secret methods you can't even begin to suspect" but, just
for our benefit, his thought balloon reveals that "Kang can move me anywhere by
manipulating his master control panel back in the 30th Century".

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that the "hands and knees" tactic meets with
failure. Ant-Man jumps up on top of a stone step that seems to appear out of
nowhere. Then, he hides in the cracks between the stones... I think. (The
truth is, I don't really have a clue what's going on in this panel. Ant-Man
seems to be hiding in some space between blocks but he is thinking
that "Spidey" is "trying to trap us with that granite block" which puts a
different spin on the panel altogether. Neither seems quite right.) He yells
out to the Wasp to "execute maneuver 4-A", which turns out to be an attack to
the bot's midsection using a combination of her flying speed and her wasp's
sting. This move knocks the robot off-balance but he quickly recovers and
tries to snag both heroes in a big web net. This backfires when Ant-Man
rapidly grows to Giant-Man height and grabs the web in one hand. ("Go get
him!" yells the Wasp, "Make spider stew out of him!") The robot responds by
stretching the web and wrapping it around Giant-Man's head. "Spidey" then
rears back to deliver "one spider-strength punch" only to hit nothing but air.
Giant-Man has shrunk down to Ant-Man again to get out of the way and then grows
right back up again, piggy-backing the Spidey-bot and pinning it up against the
wall. Before the robot can retaliate, Giant-Man shrinks back down to ant size
again and then back up again where he catches the "web-slinger" with a giant-
sized punch right to the jaw. The robot can't keep up with the size changes
and decides to run away until he can "figure some method of fighting him". But
Giant-Man has no intention of letting him escape. As the bot plans his next
move, Giant-Man tries to grab him, an arm around either side of an intervening
pillar. But the Avenger is distracted by his thoughts. "I've read a lot about
Spider-Man's exploits" he thinks, apparently forgetting that he actually met
the web-slinger just a few months ago, "but somehow he doesn't fight with the
verve and daring I'd have expected of him! He seems different in some strange
way!" This woolgathering slows Giant-Man up enough for the robot to make its
move. The bot leaps out of the way of Giant-Man's hands and then uses webbing
to tie those giant hands together, trapping him around the pillar. "And this
webbing is elasticized" says the robot, "It will shrink right down with you if
you try to escape that way!" Just then, the Wasp attacks, flitting around the
Spidey-bot's head and using her stingers. The robot merely makes a fly swatter
out of his webbing and whaps her one.

And that's when Thor finally arrives, (What did he do? Stop off for a snack in
Asgard?) just in time to see "Spidey" knock out the Wasp. The thunder god goes
to the immediate attack, flying right at the robot with his hammer, but
the "web-slinger" dodges out of the way. The bot decides to try to put Thor
out of action while he has him off-balance so he wades in with a two-handed
clout. But Thor recovers immediately and the robot realizes "He's too strong
for me" so he tries to "taunt him into defeat". (How's that for a strategy?
That's AI in action, folks!) He stands right in front of Thor and says, "How
come you don't get a haircut, chum? Tell me, do you prefer bobby pins or
ordinary curlers?" and these remarks actually succeed in infuriating the
thunder god who jumps up into the air, whirls his mallet over his head and
flings it at his opponent. This is just what the robot wants. He steps out of
the way and catches the hammer "with a double-thick web net", which causes the
mallet to land uselessly and web-covered on the ground. (Mjolnir has seemed
particularly anemic in this issue since the moment it bounced off the
headquarters wall.) Thor immediately panics since he knows that he will turn
into the lame Doctor Donald Blake if he doesn't retrieve his hammer within
sixty seconds. Desperately, he throws a huge granite block at the robot. (Did
he just yank this out of the wall? Isn't this an ancient sacred temple? And
now Thor is just wrecking it?) Again "Spider-Man" is ready for him. The robot
strings up a giant web-slingshot and attaches it to each side of the
passageway. The granite block is caught by the web and hurled right back at
Thor who runs right through it, busting the granite into chunks as he heads
right for his adversary. "Though I am pledged to harm no mortal beings" he
says, "Never have I been so sorely tempted to break that pledge as now!"

The Spidey-bot tries to slow the thunder god down by covering him in webbing
but Thor just shreds the threads as if they are paper. Just as the Avenger is
about to get his hands on the "wall-crawler", the webbing covers him like a
cocoon and holds. The bot thinks Thor "wasn't as strong as I feared" but the
real reason why the Asgardian doesn't break out is because he is no longer
there. The sixty seconds have elapsed and he has turned back into frail Dr.
Don Blake.

The robot doesn't waste much time wondering about it. All he knows is "so far
Kang's plan is working like a charm" and he is confident that he will wrap it
all up by putting it to Captain America since "he has no super powers at all".
But unbeknownst to the robot, he is being watched by a mysterious figure,
described by Stan as "the last one he would ever expect to meet". But, let's
face it, we all know who it's going to be.

Meanwhile, ol' slowpoke Cap is finally showing up by parachuting out of a
plane. The robot, now perched on an outside wall, watches as Cap lands
somewhere on the temple itself. Still believing he is dealing with the real
wall-crawler, Cap hails "Spidey" and asks if he's seen any of the other
Avengers. In response, the robot pushes one of the huge stone slabs down
toward Cap. But the false webhead doesn't account for the Golden Age Hero's
instincts, speed, and timing. Cap leaps into some niche in the temple (which
pretty much looks like the same scene as when Ant-Man hid in the cracks between
the granite just five pages ago) and the granite block falls past, missing
him. That's when Cap springs into action. He throws his shield at "Spidey"
which knocks the "wall-crawler" off his perch. Using his duplicate spider-
abilities, the robot twists around in mid-air and lands on the shield-slinger
but Cap has no trouble punching his enemy in the nose. Deciding that Cap
is "too battle-wise, too courageous, too dangerous", the robot resorts to dirty
tricks. He covers Cap's head with some webbing and then, while the blinded
Avengers tries to tug the webbing off, he pushes him off of the temple heading
for a hundred-foot fall to the ground.

Watching from the future, Kang gloats over the fact that he "had previously
filled the tomb with an odorless nerve gas which dulled the fighting
effectiveness of all of [the Avengers] but which could not affect a mere
robot". (Which is perhaps what was meant by "this entire temple has been
converted into a gigantic trap".) But Kang's feeling of triumph starts to
dwindle just a bit as he sees a web net save Captain America from his
fall. "Has my robot gone mad?" he wonders. Hoping to finish the job before
his robot malfunctions some more, Kang sends a signal to the Spidey-bot
to "turn the dial which will send all the captured Avengers here to the
future". The robot receives the command, lifts up a hunk of temple granite
revealing a gray clunky-looking control panel underneath and starts to turn
the "time-transport dial". Before the robot can touch the dial, however, he is
grabbed around the neck by some webbing and pulled away from the panel. Then a
gloved hand shoots "special sticky web fluid" onto the dial "jamming it beyond
repair".

The robot looks up from where he has landed and sees what he thinks is another
Spider-Man robot. The newcomer is quick to point out that he is not a robot
but "the real thing". He pushes the hunk of granite back into place to cover
up the control panel while a thousand years in the future, Kang can only grab
his head and moan about how the real Spidey "mustn't wreck my brilliant
plan!"

And so begins the first battle between web-slingers. Spidey tells the robot
that his very presence on "the streets of New York impersonating me" set off
his spider-sense. (An aspect of the sense that has clearly faded away over
time.) Then, he explains that he followed the bot "silently waiting to learn
what your scheme was". (But he doesn't explain how he managed to follow
him all the way to Mexico when he didn't have Kang moving him around the way
the robot did.) The Spidey-bot isn't interested in explanations anyway. He
leaps up and kicks Spider-Man in the head before the webhead can finish what
he's saying. ("Do all living beings talk so much??" he asks, "What a waste!")
The blow knocks Spidey off the tier but he stops his fall by adhering to the
side of the pyramid. He tries to counter by shooting some webbing at the
imposter but the robot uses his own spider-speed to grab the webbing and crack
the whip with Spidey still hanging onto the other end. (And he gets real
elitist and cheeky while he's at it. "Being a robot, I am far superior to any
living being!" he says.) Spider-Man, meanwhile, manages to get his footing
down on the next tier of the pyramid and he cracks the whip right back; pulling
the robot off his perch, swinging him around, and flinging him into the air
over the jungle.

Spidey expects the robot to break into pieces upon landing but things never get
to that point. The bot uses his webbing to create a couple of wings and he
glides over the jungle. Seeing this, Spidey does the same thing, running off
the end of the pyramid and gliding toward his counterpart. When he gets close
enough, Spider-Man drops his wings and lunges at the robot, grabbing him in mid-
air. The bot cannot drop his wings as well since, as Spidey puts it, "one of
us has to keep us in the air". So, Spidey grabs the robot around the neck and
goes searching for the "main control stud" which will deactivate his opponent.
(And why does Spidey think there is a main control stud? Because in the
first half of the sixties, all robots in comics had main control studs
that would deactivate them.)

Sure enough, Spidey finds the button somewhere on the body of the robot
(but I sure can't tell where because the whole thing is shown so close up that
the only thing I'm sure of is Spider-Man's finger... which doesn't even look
like a finger.) And so, the inert robot falls to the jungle floor while Spider-
Man saves himself with a web parachute. He doesn't know who created the robot
but he does know that "even a genius can make one mistake" which is that
while "a mechanical brain can be faster, contain more memory impulses, make no
mistakes... it can never really outthink a human brain". And here I thought
the "one mistake" was putting that main control stud in a place where Spidey
could deactivate him.

Over on the side of the pyramid, Captain America (who still hasn't budged and
now looks like he's completely covered in webbing) watches the whole
battle and realizes that the Avengers had been fighting a robot "and the real
Spider-Man saved us". Inside the temple (now referred to, by Stan, as "the
mysterious tomb"), Don Blake manages to push his hand through the webbing to
grab Mjolnir. He bangs it on the ground and "Thor lives again!" Somewhere in
between panels, Giant-Man and the Wasp recuperate and join the others in the
temple. There, Cap explains what he has seen and theorizes that "we have only
one foe capable of creating so perfect a robot... it can only be a man with all
the scientific marvels of thirty centuries at his beck and call". Giant-Man
knows what that means... "Kang!!" This news gets Thor to whirl his hammer over
his head and yell out to the villain (who he assumes is still spying on
them), "Hear me, man of the future! The Avengers have been warned! Next time
we shall not be taken unaware!" And Thor is right. Kang is still
listening. He pounds his view screen with both fists as he realizes that the
entire scheme was in vain. "Still the Avengers live" he thinks, "still they
defy me" and then he turns and walks away, head down, into the shadows. (But
if it makes you feel any better, Kang old pal, the Avengers do not "still
live". You're in the 30th Century. The Avengers must have kicked off almost a
thousand years ago. Why worry about them? Sit back and have a cold one.)

There is also a nifty Kang pin-up in this issue showing the Conqueror standing
next to a monitoring device that shows Rama-Tut and Dr. Doom on a couple of
(black and white!) view screens. And in the "Special Announcements Section"
Stan admits that "after we started drawing the Avengers-Spidey yarn you've just
finished, we got the feeling that some of you might feel cheated, because it
wasn't the real Spider-Man whom the Avengers were battling! So, we dropped
everything and changed the ending around until it came out the way it appears
in the mag." Meaning, I assume, that the real Spider-Man wasn't originally
slated to appear at all. No wonder Stan didn't have a decent explanation for
how Spidey got down to Mexico.

Spidey doesn't really meet the Avengers until Amazing Spider-Man Special #3
(November 1966) whose members, at that point, are Captain American, Thor,
Iron Man, Goliath, the Wasp, and Hawkeye. The Avengers offer him membership if
he can pass a test of capturing the Incredible Hulk. But when Spidey discovers
that the Hulk is also Bruce Banner, he decides to stop hounding the "poor
tortured soul" and bails out on the Avengers.

While Kang returns often and endlessly to face the Avengers (the next time
being Avengers #23, December 1965), he is never really a Spider-Man
villain at all. The web-slinger does get involved in a caper involving Kang,
Zarrko the Tomorrow Man, Iron Man, the Human Torch and the Inhumans (in
Marvel Team-Up #9-11, May-July 1973) but in the end the heroes learn
that Kang was never on the scene at all. The "Kang" they were fighting is
revealed to be an elaborate puppet while the real Kang staged everything from a
distance. I know of no other Kang-Spidey appearances but would love to hear
about them if they exist.

And, of course, the Spider-Man robot woke up in the Mexican jungle, bought a
motorcycle, changed his name to Ben Reilly and moved to Colorado. Or something
like that.

(Actually, the Spider-Man robot did wake up much later and faced off
against Ben Reilly, where he eventually ended up getting his head knocked off.
I'm not kidding. It's in Spider-Man Team-Up #4, September 1996. Check
it out.

)

General Comments

Well, it's a pretty thin issue, all in all. Here's Kang with all of space and
time at his command and the best he can do is put together a Spider-Man robot
and send him into battle against the Avengers in some Mexican pyramid? Not
only that but he apparently fills the Mexican pyramid with death traps and
never bothers to use them. And not only that but he builds his robot with a
shut-off switch! The Avengers can't even get it together to travel as a
group. And God knows how Spider-Man even shows up at all. But let's boil it
all down to two words and say, simply, "No Ditko".